Review of crime and incarceration trends in the United States and also examining the relationships in data regarding crimes commited, number of prisoners and prison expenditures across time and states.
16/01/2020
Aim of the project
Data
- The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR dataset)
- The National Prisoner Statistics Program (prison dataset)
- Justice Expenditure And Employment Extracts Series (prison expenditures dataset)
Specificity of District of Columbia
Background (1/3)
Background (2/3)
Background (3/3)
Incarceration and crime rates (1/4)
Violent crimes per population in time 
Property crimes per population in time 
Incarceration and crime rates (2/4)
Incarceration and crime rates (3/4)
Incarceration and crime rates (4/4)
Investments into prisons and crime rates
Clustering (1/3)
Clustering (2/3)
Clustering (3/3)
| Cluster 1 | Cluster 2 | Cluster 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norteast | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Midwest | 5 | 2 | 5 |
| South | 13 | 0 | 3 |
| West | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| remote | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Conclusions
- There are on average 10 times more property crimes than violent crimes per square km.
- Northeastern region has the highest number of crimes.
- Midwestern states like New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusets are ranked higher with violent crimes than property crimes.
- There is a positive relationship between the number of prisoners per capita and the rates of violent crimes per capita. Over time, the relationship is ambiguous.
- For both violent and property crimes the numbers drop after 2009.
- North and South Dakotas showed the highest percentage change in crimes between 2001 and 2016.
- The state with the highest percentage change of incarceration rates is West Virginia.
- We couldn’t define the relationship between investments into prisons and crime rates.
- Clustering into 3 clusters matched geographical locations of the states.